Cooper: Remembering islands and island people

As far back as I can remember, I have had an unusual fascination with islands, perhaps in part because of the genealogy I referred to in a previous column. The Coffins most often chose to live on or near the islands of coastal Maine while my Cooper ancestors - having migrated west from their Maine settlements - sought out the islands of the northwest, where some of them still fish commercially, living as far north as Alaska's Kodiak Island.

My favorite island, Monhegan, is just an hour by mail boat off Maine's mid-coast, and most years I have hiked its miles of trails, and thrilled to the roaring waves pounding the base of its high eastern cliffs, having begun their journey as far away as Scotland. There is evidence that Viking explorers may have been its first visitors; possibly having come ashore to harvest tall pines to replace masts lost in North Atlantic storms. Coins dating back to the year 1000 have been found nearby.

Along with an older brother who was storm-bound there during Hurricane Helene in 1988, I have long wished to spend a week on Matinicus, one of the more distant and wild of the sparsely-inhabited Maine islands.

I did spend that much time with family members who still live on Guemes Island just offshore of Anacortes, Washington, and enjoyed every minute of it, watching pilot whales cavort nearby. It was during that stay that I penned a poem worth sharing:

The Guemes Island Twitch

By Al Cooper

Those who call an island home,
In winter and in summer,
Answer to a different drum,
And to a different drummer.
They know when tides are high and low,
And when the clamming's best;
But most of all, they've learned to pass
The Island Ferry test.

The folks I know who hang their hat
On Guemes Island's shore,
Are island people through and through;
Guemesians to the core.
No matter where they're at or what
They're doing you will note,
One eye is focused on their watch,
The other on the boat.

The six PM departure is the one
That sets hearts beating.
The final passage of the day, the one
You can't miss meeting.
Guemesians shopping at the store,
And filling all their lists,
Are torn between the checker and
The watch upon their wrists.

When six o'clock was looming close,
On just such an occasion,
And "ferry panic" struck - it's said -
A certain young Guemesian,
Observers saw the dreaded twitch,
And then with arms aflailing,
She left behind a two-year-old,
So's not to miss the sailing!

I've Practiced now for one full week,
To get the movement right.
I almost missed the ferry once,
My timing was so tight.
I've got the action mastered now,
It goes without a hitch:
The wrist is flexed, the eye is cocked . . .
The Guemes Island Twitch!